Harding’s Luck E. Nesbit (epub read online books .txt) 📖

by which he himself had been cheated set Dickie thinking. He said, very gently and quietly, after a little pause⁠—

“This ’ere walking tower of ours. We pays our own way? No cadging?”

“I should ’ope you know me better than that,” said Beale virtuously; “not a patter have I done since I done the Rally and started in the dog line.”

“Nor yet no dealings with that redheaded chap what I never see?”

“Now, is it likely?” Beale asked reproachfully. “I should ’ope we’re a cut above a low chap like wot ’e is. The pram’s dry as a bone and shiny as yer ’at, and we’ll start the first thing in the morning.”

And in the early morning, which is fresh and sweet even in Deptford, they bade farewell to Amelia and the dogs and set out.

Amelia watched them down the street and waved a farewell as they turned the corner. “It’ll be a bit lonesome,” she said. “One thing, I shan’t be burgled, with all them dogs in the house.”

The voices of the dogs, as she went in and shut the door, seemed to assure her that she would not even be so very lonely.

And now they were really on the road. And they were going to Arden⁠—to that place by the sea where Dickie’s uncle, in the other life, had a castle, and where Dickie was to meet his cousins, after his seven months of waiting.

You may think that Dickie would be very excited by the thought of meeting, in this workaday, nowadays world, the children with whom he had had such wonderful adventures in the other world, the dream world⁠—too excited, perhaps, to feel really interested in the little everyday happenings of “the road.” But this was not so. The present was after all the real thing. The dreams could wait. The knowledge that they were there, waiting, made all the ordinary things more beautiful and more interesting. The feel of the soft dust underfoot, the bright, dewy grass and clover by the wayside, the lessening of houses and the growing wideness of field and pasture, all contented and delighted Dickie. He felt to the full all the joy that Mr. Beale felt in “ ’oofing it,” and when as the sun was sinking they overtook a bent, slow-going figure, it was with a thrill of real pleasure that Dickie recognized the woman who had given him the blue ribbon for True.

True himself, now grown large and thick of coat, seemed to recognize a friend, gambolled round her dreadful boots, sniffed at her withered hand.

“Give her a lift with her basket, shall us?” Dickie whispered to Mr. Beale and climbed out of the perambulator. “I can make shift to do this last piece.”

So the three went on together, in friendly silence. As they neared Orpington the woman said, “Our road parts here; and thank you kindly. A kindness is never wasted, so they say.”

“That ain’t nothing,” said Beale; “besides, there’s the blue ribbon.”

“That the dog?” the woman asked.

“Same ole dawg,” said Beale, with pride.

“A pretty beast,” she said. “Well⁠—so long.”

She looked back to smile and nod to them when she had taken her basket and the turning to the right, and Dickie suddenly stiffened all over, as a pointer does when it sees a partridge.

“I say,” he cried, “you’re the nurse⁠—”

“I’ve nursed a many in my time,” she called back.

“But in the dream⁠ ⁠… you know.”

“Dreams is queer things,” said the woman. “And,” she added, “least said is soonest mended.”

“But⁠ ⁠…” said Dickie.

“Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut’s a good motto,” said she, nodded again, and turned resolutely away.

“Not very civil, I don’t think,” said Beale, “considerin’⁠—”

“Oh, she’s all right,” said Dickie, wondering very much, and very anxious that Beale should not wonder. “May I ride in the pram, farver? My foot’s a bit blistered, I think. We ain’t done so much walkin’ lately, ’ave us?”

“Ain’t tired in yourself, are you?” Mr. Beale asked, “ ’cause there’s a place called Chevering Park, pretty as a picture⁠—I thought we might lay out there. I’m a bit ’ot in the ’oof meself; but I can stick it if you can.”

Dickie could; and when they made their evening camp in a deep gully soft with beech-leaves, and he looked out over the ridge⁠—cautiously, because of keepers⁠—at the smoothness of a mighty slope, green-gray in the dusk, where rabbits frisked and played, he was glad that he had not yielded to his tiredness and stopped to rest the night anywhere else. Chevering Park is a very beautiful place, I would have you to know. And the travellers were lucky. The dogs were good and quiet, and no keeper disturbed their rest or their masters. Dickie slept with True in his arms, and it was like a draught of soft magic elixir to lie once more in the still, cool night and look up at the stars through the trees.

“Can’t think why they ever invented houses,” he said, and then he fell asleep.

By short stages, enjoying every step of every day’s journey, they went slowly and at their ease through the garden-land of Kent. Dickie loved every minute of it, every leaf in the hedge, every blade of grass by the roadside. And most of all he loved the quiet nights when he fell asleep under the stars with True in his arms.

It was all good, all⁠ ⁠… And it was worth waiting and working for seven long months, to feel the thrill that Dickie felt when Beale, as they topped a ridge of the great South Downs, said suddenly, “There’s the sea,” and, a dozen yards further on, “There’s Arden Castle.”

There it lay, gray and green, with its old stones and ivy⁠—the same Castle which Dickie had seen on the day when they lay among the furze bushes and waited to burgle Talbot Court. There were red roofs at one side of the Castle where a house had been built among the ruins. As they drew nearer, and looked down at Arden Castle, Dickie saw two little figures in its